Wichita State vs South Florida College Basketball Picks, Odds, Predictions 3/12/21

The USF Bulls and the Wichita State Shockers meet in an AAC conference tournament quarter-final matchup from Dickies Arena on Friday night.

The USF Bulls booked their spot in the quarters thanks to a 73-71 win over Temple last time out. David Collins led the Bulls with 23 points on 9 of 19 shooting with 3 assists while Jamir Chaplin had 12 points on 5 of 8 shooting with a pair of threes and Michael Durr matched his 11 points with a team-high 11 rebounds for the double-double to round out the trio of double-digit scorers for USF in the winning effort. Caleb Murphy had a team-high 4 assists with a pair of steals while Justin Brown had 6 points with 7 rebounds and Xavier Castaneda had 6 points with 5 rebounds and 3 assists.

The Wichita State Shockers come into the conference tournament as the top seed, finishing the season with a conference record of 11-2 as part of their 15-4 overall record this season. Tyson Etienne leads the way for the Shockers in scoring with 17.1 PPG while Alterique Gilbert has 10.1 PPG as the only other double-digit scorers for Wichita State this season while also leading the Shockers in the assist department with 4.2 APG this season. Dexter Dennis and Morris Udeze each have 9.7 PPG and 4+ RPG while Trey Wade leads the Shockers in rebounding with 5.4 RPG this season. As a team, Wichita State is averaging 73.3 PPG on 41% shooting from the field and 34% from three while allowing 67.8 PPG on 40.1% shooting from the field and 28.7% from three this season.

USF is 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games against a team with a winning record and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the over is 13-5 in their last 18 neutral site games. Wichita State is 53-18-1 ATS in their last 61 games against a team with a losing record and 3-10 ATS in their last 13 Friday games while the under is 11-5 in their last 16 games following a win. The favorite is 5-0-1 ATS in the last 6 meetings between these two teams.

I get why the points with the Bulls are tempting as USF’s already had a game to shake off the rust and Wichita State’s coming in rested/rusty depending on how you look at the layoff. However Wichita State just beat USF by 17 at the end of the regular season and the Shockers were the best team in the conference when all was said and done, which is saying something considering there weren’t many high hopes when the whole Gregg Marshall thing went down prior to the season. I just think a double-digit win for the Shockers isn’t out of the question, so I’ll lay it and play it with Wichita State here.